Ethel May Dell was a British writer of popular romance novels. Her father was a clerk in the City of London, where she lived with an older brother and sister. She began writing while young, and had stories in popular publications. Most of her stories were tales of passion set in India and other British colonies. After several years of work and many rejections, her first novel, The Way of an Eagle was published, and in four years went through twenty-seven printings. She was savaged by critics but very popular with readers, and appeared not to care what the critics thought. In "The Tidal Wave", fisherman Rufus the Red finds his life upset. The Ship, the local inn where Rufus sometimes spends an evening, has a new resident. Columbine has come to live with the owner, her aunt Mrs. Peck. Rufus is a solitary man, capable of taking on any two men when his temper is up, and content to be left alone by others, but that is about to change . . .

Author Biography

Ethel M. Dell (1881 - 1939) was a British writer of over 30 popular romance novels and several short stories from 1911 to 1939. Ethel Dell worked on a novel for several years, but it was rejected by eight publishers. Finally the publisher T. Fisher Unwin bought the book for their First Novel Library, a series which introduced a writer's first book. This book, entitled The Way of an Eagle, was published in 1911 and by 1915 it had gone through thirty printings. Her debut novel is very characteristic of Ethel M. Dell's novels. There is a very feminine woman, an alpha male, a setting in India, passion galore liberally mixed with some surprisingly shocking violence and religious sentiments sprinkled throughout. While readers adored Ethel M. Dell's novels, critics hated them with a passion; but she did not care what the critics thought. She considered herself a good storyteller - nothing more and nothing less. She continued to write novels for a number of years. She made quite a lot of money, from 20,000 to 30,000 a year, but remained quiet and almost pathologically shy.